Oil company Teboil wanted to speed up the rate that its customers were switching over to e-invoices. When the company was no longer able to increase the number of customers switching over to e-invoices based on its own efforts, Posti’s invoice sending service helped to provide an additional boost.

“We want to streamline and digitize our internal processes, and e-invoicing is part of this. Naturally, the direct and obvious savings that result from the in- crease in e-invoicing is also an impor- tant factor,” says Petri Auvinen, Director, Business services unit at Teboil.

Posti Messaging and Teboil completed a successful e-invoice activation project for consumer and corporate customers in 2015. Over six months the number of e-invoice recipients increased significantly in the target groups.

“We would have never achieved these results without an expert partner. Posti has many years of experience in e-invoicing. It also has knowledge of con- sumer behavior, for example, and up-to- date information on the requirements of different banks,” says Auvinen

We achieved good results in a short time. Invoice sending costs have decreased by dozens of percent.

- Petri Auvinen - Director, Business services unit at Oy Teboil Ab

Rapid implementation for those interested

Teboil sends about 1.2 million invoices a year. For several years Posti has been sending all of the company’s sales invoices to consumers and companies either as conventional paper invoices or via electronic channels.

Teboil operates in two business areas, which also has an impact on its invoic- ing. Auvinen explains that in the whole- sale of fuel oil and heating oil, customers are invoiced for each order, while on the retail side Teboil’s corporate credit card customers are invoiced for their pur- chases once or twice a month. A de- tailed list of all purchases, which may be dozens of pages long, is enclosed with each invoice.

“Such invoices are expensive for the sender. However, wedidnotwanttostartcharging our customers for paper invoices, as we wanted to find positive ways of increasing the number of e-invoices,” says Auvinen.

Consumer customers were approached with marketing messages attached to their paper invoices and with a com- petition, for example, giving customers switching to e-invoicing the chance to win an invoice-free month. The cam- paign to encourage corporate custom- ers to switch to e-invoicing was carried out via email with selected target groups and an electronic tool which surveyed whether companies wanted to and were able to transfer to e-invoices.

“It has been beneficial for us to have an invoicing partner that is a large company which actively monitors what takes place on the market and is involved in develop- ing the sector.”

Challenge

» Teboil’s own efforts were no longer enough to increase the number of customers receiv- ing electronic sales invoices. The company wanted to speed up the rate that its customers were switching over to elec- tronic invoices. The aim was to achieve considerable savings and to increase the number of electronic processes in internal business support services.

Solution

» The eActivation project encouraged consumer and corporate customers to choose electronic invoicing. Campaigns created for different target groups con- siderably increased the number of electronic sales invoices in a short time.

Oy Teboil Ab imports, markets, sells and distributes oil and energy products. Teboil has a network of around 550 branches of service stations and unmanned stations. The company is also engaged in the wholesale and corporate sale of fuel oils and diesel, the consumer sale of heating oil and the sale of lubricants and liquefied petroleum gas. In 2014 the company’s turnover was EUR 2.1 billion and its market share was 26 percent. Teboil is part of the LUKOIL Group.